I really loved how it made me feel aside from being so focused on food all. the. time! Plus I found it to be expensive! It was nice but I don't think I had enough support to continue on with it an I never really felt fully satisfied foodwise.

I was experimenting a lot! So lots of new things I had ne'er tried before, raw cacao, cacao butter, mulberries, raw dehydrated fruits, raw crackers, raw nuts, spirulina etc. I found those products to be quite pricy as well as I ate a lot at a raw food cafe because I like the convenience of not always preparing my own food. If you are going to eat a simple raw diet of fruits, veggies, sprouted grains, beans etc that would be far less expensive IMO.

I do still try to incorporate a high percentage of raw foods in my diet as I feel they truly are beneficial and a critical part of a healthy lifestyle.

I do a raw diet for a couple months every summer. I just did raw for the whole month of June! It's really easy and I feel soooo good once I get into a routine. Normally breakfast is fruit, lunch is a huge salad (with various vegetables) or "hummus" (sunflower pate that tastes JUST LIKE hummus) and dinner is smoothies or zucchini pasta. Occasionally I'll have fresh juices, but it's a huge pain to clean up and I'm a lazy asparagus. Also, medjool dates with raw almond butter really is the most magical food in the world.

The first time I did this diet, I started to get a little obsessive about everything. Now I'm not so restrictive with myself and if I reeeally want something that's cooked, I'll eat it. Life is too short to feel guilty about food. There's NO way I'm giving up my steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

As far as physical changes go, my skin glows (seriously. it's wild.) and I lose weight easily. I lost 6 pounds this month, and I'd still have a cooked meal or two every week. I've also noticed that my moods and energy seems far more balanced when I eat this way and it seems like my outlook is generally more positive.

Also, "gourmet" and specialty foods are fun, but they make me feel like doodoo if I eat them more than once every few days. Blegh.

_________________"I rebuke this thread in the name of Jesus." -Jagadeesh

Yep, I spent a lot of dough at first. I had the money, so I used it to play with all the extras, like maca, mesquite, goji berries, stuff like that. I still use those things, but in much smaller quantities. I used Ani Phyo's cookbooks (I'm a big fan of hers, but there are some really fabulous raw chefs out there), and found that if I stuck to the serving sizes (more or less) I felt satisfied and the recipes stretched three or four days for my boyfriend and me. I pad out the expensive nut-based stuff with extra veggies, quinoa, et cetera, and that helps keep costs down.

There are (generally) two forms of raw. "Gourmet" raw is the more known of the two. Its main source of calories is fat: nuts (in the form of butters, crackers, spreads, etc), oils, and avocados. Then there is high fruit/low fat raw, such as 80-10-10. With that, the main source of calories is fruit. Nuts/tahini and avocados are kept very minimal (i.e. 1/4-1/2 avo in a day, if any) and oil has no place. With "gourmet" raw, fat supplies over 60% of calories. WIth 80-10-10, fat is less than 10% of calories.

I'm a big fan of Ani Phyo, too! Although I prefer to make up lower fat versions of a lot of her savoury stuff. And a fan of avoiding superfoods and supplements! Except as treats occasionally, otherwise it is too expensive, or you end up with food-cravings from lack of basic fruit/veg carbs and such. Growing greens and herbs at home helps, and it's easy. Shopping at the farmer's market and buying what's in-season really helps. And eating a bit less raw in winter, when fresh is less plentiful, which drives the prices up a bit.

Nuts/tahini and avocados are kept very minimal (i.e. 1/4-1/2 avo in a day, if any) and oil has no place. With "gourmet" raw, fat supplies over 60% of calories. WIth 80-10-10, fat is less than 10% of calories.

I tried it a few years ago for about a week and was miserable. Also, it's expensive to buy so many nuts and raw ingredients. But yeah, miserable for me. I was awake most nights just thinking about food all the time. Also, I tried a soup of Ani Phyo's (from Raw Food Kitchen) and it was just an oily mess. Like it was literally just lemon juice and oil or something awful. I tried the flax pancakes from the same book but felt really weird just eating mouthfuls of flaxmeal. Overall, not for me.

_________________Did you notice the slight feeling of panic at the words "Chicken Basin Street"? Like someone was walking over your grave? Try not to remember. We must never remember. - mumblesIs this about devilberries and nazifruit again? - footface

I would not recommend Ani Phyo's work. Everything that I have tried has been so oily that I cannot take it. I may have chosen bad recipes to make, or did them badly or something, but it made the raw experience more time consuming and unpleasant, so I do not recommend. An approach to raw food that works sometimes for me to keep down the costs and keep me not obsessed with food is to eat fruit in the morning, pretty much constantly, salad throughout lunch and raw vegetable pieces in the afternoon. Then make some meal for dinner with nuts, avocado, some kind of fat and things like that so it seems like you have a "real" dinner and not just a salad. Then more nuts and fruit for dessert. I do not stick to this all the time, but this is how I eat when I'm eating raw, and it makes me feel more energetic, but does not necessarily help the skin and hair like I have hoped.

I tried it a few years ago for about a week and was miserable. Also, it's expensive to buy so many nuts and raw ingredients. But yeah, miserable for me. I was awake most nights just thinking about food all the time. Also, I tried a soup of Ani Phyo's (from Raw Food Kitchen) and it was just an oily mess. Like it was literally just lemon juice and oil or something awful. I tried the flax pancakes from the same book but felt really weird just eating mouthfuls of flaxmeal. Overall, not for me.

I tried that soup and wanted to die it was so gross. Someone, perhaps in one of the threads linked here, suggested some modifications, like subbing pureed zucchini for most of the oil, that I'm excited to try.

Ani Phyo's books were a good jumping-off point for me because a lot of the food was familiar to me--we ate cooked marinated mushrooms and broccoli mash (two of her recipes) when I was a kid, so it was easy to imagine how they might taste. But I'm super excited to try some of the other books suggested here so I can branch out a little. I'm ordering Becoming Raw now--Becoming Vegan was a big help to me.

I tried it a few years ago for about a week and was miserable. Also, it's expensive to buy so many nuts and raw ingredients. But yeah, miserable for me. I was awake most nights just thinking about food all the time. Also, I tried a soup of Ani Phyo's (from Raw Food Kitchen) and it was just an oily mess. Like it was literally just lemon juice and oil or something awful. I tried the flax pancakes from the same book but felt really weird just eating mouthfuls of flaxmeal. Overall, not for me.

Yeah, I think the general consensus was that her soups were way too oily, and that you could cut the oil in half, and even then it was a matter of taste.

_________________"I would love to be president of the United States. It's been my dream ever since I discovered what power was." ~ RandiJM, age 11-ish

I tried doing raw food as a weight loss method in the past and found it pretty effective, even while only doing two raw meals a day and one cooked. My favourite raw lunch was simple sliced veggies (carrot chips, bell pepper strips) and guacamole. Thats actually how I learned to like raw bell pepper! And its easy to do smoothies raw, just soak some nuts for a couple hours then blend with water and fruit.